Improvements in data communication technology have revolutionized the exchange of information in business, education, government, and household settings. The rates of data transmission are increasing, and the reliability of data transmission media is improving, resulting in fast, efficient, and dependable data transfers between users.
Because much of the data communications infrastructure and supporting protocols have proved to be scalable, there are many similarities between modern data communications techniques and those used in earlier decades. Earlier data communications networks were more prone to errors, such as the loss of data during a transmission, and the corruption of data due to noise and other factors. As a result, many standards and specifications set forth extensive safeguards to ensure accurate data transmissions.
As data-networking devices and data transmission media have improved, the need for these safeguards may not be as great as it once was. Hence, resources used for providing these safeguards, such as Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) codes, might not be providing the benefits that they once may have provided.
A need may still exist for conveying event status information, such as an error condition, from a data-originating device (a transmitter) to a data-receiving device (a receiver). Several schemes have been developed to address the conveyance of event status information from an originating device to a receiving device. One such scheme involves transmitting the event status information on a communication channel that is separate from the communication channel in which the non-event-status information is being transmitted (i.e. the main data channel). For example, in an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) system, a separate virtual channel may be set up between an originating ATM device and a receiving ATM device to convey such event status information. But this technique may also be an inefficient use of resources, especially in a network that is overburdened or that needs the resources to provide specified levels of quality of service to users of the network.
Needed are a system and method for communicating an event status across a single data channel.
Also needed are a system and method for communicating an event status across an ATM connection.
A system and method for communicating an event status across an ATM connection, in which the data being transmitted is Constant Bit-Rate (CBR) data, would also be desirable.